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Monday, July 19, 2010

T-Shirt Hats

A little while ago, I saw THIS post as I was paroozing through blogger-land. It is a tutorial for making the most adorable hats out of t-shirts!! That gal AT SECOND STREET is amazing! After reading this--you need to march yourself right over to her blog and check out her awesomeness!

So because I wanted to try out her tutorial--I went on a hunt to find a t-shirt to use for this project. I saw this guy hanging in my closet:

I really LOVE stripes--but every time I wore this shirt I felt like I should be appearing on Blue's Clue's! And notice the grease stain in the middle of the shirt! So I decided this would be a perfect shirt to turn into this:

(Once again, I apologize for the HORRIBLE pictures!!! I am getting so frustrated with my missing camera and with having to use my camera phone in bad lighting with-out a flash!! AARRGGG!!!)

ANYWAYS, I loved sewing the first hat up so much that I decided to use some of the left over scraps from this project:

To turn into this for my little gal:

Once I got started making these little babies--I just couldn't stop!

I found this t-shirt in my fabric stash:

And turned it into this little baby (Which is my FAVORITE one):

Did I already mention that I HATE my phone camera?

After doing all these GIRL hats--I used THIS post over at I AM MOMMA HEAR ME ROAR (another of my favorite blogs!) to help me make a brim that was better shaped for a BOYS hat.

Then I started with an orange shirt from the Dollar Store--my son LOVES orange--and when I saw an orange shirt in his size at the dollar store--I snatched it up! But then when he was loving on all the hats I was making--I decided he needed and orange hat more than an orange shirt.

In the t-shirt tutorial she uses a large men's t-shirt. I just used whatever I had. Because the pieces to go around the head need to be as long as the circumference of your head--these t-shirts weren't wide enough. SO I am going to show you how I pieced the sleeves together to make a long enough piece for the circumference and still have enough fabric for all the hat pieces.

I started by cutting off the finished hem on the bottom of the shirt.

Then I cut 3 1/2 inch strip off the bottom for a children's size hat (4" for an adult).

Next I cut off the sleeves.

This next picture is the sleeve turned sideways and then cut into pieces. You can see the piece on the right is the long piece that I just cut off the bottom of the shirt and placed there so I can make the sleeve piece the same width--3 1/2

Next I did the same thing with the other sleeve so I now had 2 extra pieces of the same size.

Now I sewed all three pieces together. Then I pressed each seam with seam allowances apart and then top stitched on each side of each seam.

Next I measured this new long piece and cut off any extra. My circumference for my little guy's head was 20" so I added a 1/2" for seam allowance and so I cut this strip down to 20 1/2".

Then I sewed both ends together so it makes the band into a circle for the hat.

This is what the seams look like from the right side:

Next I used a Tupperware lid (that was the right size for the top of the hat) to trace around and I traced the brim of a hat that already fits the little guy.

Sorry--I actually ended up tracing the hat brim onto paper and then cut it out of the fabric.

Then I cut out a smaller brim out of heavy interfacing and tucked it inside the two layers of the brim fabric.

Then I sewed around the curved part of the brim several times to secure the interfacing and for a decorative look.

Then all that is left is to put all three of these pieces together.

So I sewed them together using the middle seam on my band as the back of the hat.

Once that hat was sewn up--I notched out the seam around the top to make the hat lay nicely when it was turned right side out.

Then all that was left to do was add some fun to the front--and find a cute boy to put it on!

Which is what I did.

On this next picture you can see one of the 3 seams. The other is directly at the back of the hat and the 3rd is equal placement on the other side.

And it actually didn't fit as snug as I wanted so I took a tuck out of the back to make it fit better.

Now go search YOUR closets and find yourself a T-shirt to make into a HAT!

I like to wear hats when I'm hanging out in the sun (the last time I didn't I got a sunburn on the part in my hair) but most of my baseball style hats have sayings on them and I don't always like to look like an advertisement. Your hats are cute, a little girly and not so basebally (yes, that is a word. As of right now.)